


If You Build a Model Home (Just Burn It to the Ground)

by aghamora



Series: and the bible didn’t mention us [2]
Category: How to Get Away with Murder
Genre: (literally), Alternate Universe - Parents, F/M, First Meetings, Fluff and Angst, Future Fic, Romance, Single Parents, Slow Burn, frank is a daddy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-14
Updated: 2017-05-23
Packaged: 2018-10-31 12:30:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 17,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10899399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aghamora/pseuds/aghamora
Summary: In which single mom Laurel meets single dad Frank, proceeds to have an early onset midlife crisis as well as a few other sundry crises, and, if she can get out of her head a little, just might rediscover love.





	1. I

**Author's Note:**

> Eyoooo SO basically, if anyone cares, my plan for the rest of this summer into the fall is to work on these AU's and my other canonverse series as much as possible. I've recently gotten a full-time summer co op which is eating all my energy, so if you do see my output decrease... das why.
> 
> ALSO please leave a comment/kudo if you're so obliged. They really do encourage me and I haven't been getting a lot recently, esp in the way of comments. This is a three-parter, the next two parts will be up over the course of this week.... maybe.

It isn’t until her heel breaks in the school parking lot that Laurel’s day officially crosses the line from semi-shitty to outright horrible. She doesn’t think _bad_ to _worse_ properly quantifies it.

She can deal with the teenage girl who rear-ends her on her way to work while texting, and the judge who’s an asshole to both her and her client and royally fucks her entire game plan for her latest case, and the weather; halfway in between freezing rain and some sort of uncommitted snow, littering the streets and sidewalks with patches of slushy black ice, and the call she gets from the principal’s office right as she’s about to take her much-needed lunch break, requesting her presence after an ‘incident’ on the playground involving her son – who, apparently, has decided to do his part in making her day hell too.

Still.

All that, she can handle; really, she can, but it’s when she hears the decisive _snap_ and feels her ankle jerk roughly to the side that she finally lets out a roar of frustration, picking up the broken piece, hobbling her way into the building, and making her way to Principal Figueroa’s office after the secretary directs her. She’s late – very, very late, wild-eyed and shivering and limping – and she knows how that looks, an undisciplined disaster of a mother raising what the administration must think is an equally undisciplined son, who throws snowballs at girls on the playground because, well, he’s decided that’s his new favorite recreational activity.

Things are teetering very precariously between _outright horrible_ and _complete shit_ , when she steps inside the office. She thinks she might still be able to salvage this day overall, though.

Turns out optimism is something she’s had to acquire as a parent.

“I’m sorry I’m late,” she breathes, glowing bright red from the cold. She sets down her purse, sinking into one of the two wooden chairs in front of the desk; the other occupied by a man, presumably the other parent, who she’s not sure she wants to make eye contact with until she absolutely has to. “I, uh – traffic.”

It’s not an altogether articulate response, but it does the job, and Principal Figueroa, a small, beetle-like man she’s only met a few times before, gives her a polite nod.

“Please, Ms. Castillo, have a seat,” he says, and it’s redundant, seeing as she’s already sitting, but Laurel just nods, sucking in a breath to stabilize herself, prepare to weather whatever shitstorm is headed her way. “This is… Mr. Delfino, Caterina’s father.”

Caterina. She recognizes the name from their phone conversation earlier – her son’s unwitting snowball victim – and cringes, finally forcing herself to glance sideways at him. He’s looking back, predictably, and just as predictably he looks more than a little miffed, jaw tight and eyes a cutting, impatient blue. He’s in a suit, three-piece and charcoal grey, hair slicked back, beard trimmed close; she can only assume her son’s misadventures had interrupted his workday, too.

So. Score two for her.

Mr. Delfino doesn’t greet her. He just stares. He’s probably rightfully pissed, if she’s being honest, and it isn’t outright hostility that he’s displaying, but it’s enough to set her on edge, put her on defense and make her sharpen her tongue, prepare for a fight.

“Frank,” he offers, after a moment, though it’s clear it’s no overture of peace, no olive branch.

She smiles, and it’s genteel, a little tight. There’s no sense in starting this off on an even worse foot; she’ll probably only dig herself – and Christopher – a deeper hole that way. “Laurel. Nice to meet you.”

He doesn’t offer even a terse _Likewise_. He doesn’t offer anything, doesn’t so much as smile, just looks away, back at Principal Figueroa, waiting for the man to proceed and dole out punishment, and finally he begins, leaning forward and folding his hands on the desk.

“I spoke on the phone with both of you, so in the interest of time I’m not going to bother repeating the story. But, Ms. Castillo…” He heaves a careful, long-suffering sigh. “I’m sure you know we can’t tolerate this kind of behavior at our school-”

“Yes. Of course,” she agrees, still breathing heavily from her haste. “I understand, completely. Chris, he… he’s never done anything like this, before.” She sits up a bit straighter, wringing her hands. “He’s a good kid, Mr. Figueroa. He doesn’t cause problems for his teachers. I understand you have to discipline him but-” Laurel shakes her head. “I don’t know, isn’t all this a bit… much, for one little snowball?”

“One little snowball?” Mr. Delfino – _Frank_ – scoffs beside her. “He almost knocked her over, coulda taken an eye out.”

Laurel furrows her brow, the brittle, plastered smile on her face beginning to show its cracks. “I think that’s probably an exaggeration-”

“Don’t know what might’ve been in here. A stick or rock or somethin’.”

“It’s just a snowball,” she lowers her voice, ever the peacemaker. “Look, they’re kids. They do this kind of stuff. It was harmless, and… boys will be boys-”

“Boys’ll be boys? That’s bull and you know it,” he sneers, incredulous. “And usin’ that to justify your kid’s bad behavior-”

Laurel arches an eyebrow, incensed. “Excuse me?”

“-just teaches boys they can get away doin’ whatever they want to girls like Cat with no repercussions,” he continues, a sharp Philly drawl coming out strong and biting in his anger. He glances back at a stunned Mr. Figueroa, who looks too scared to intercede. “It’s not just a snowball on the playground. It’s her at a party in ten years, drunk and gettin’ taken advantage of because guys like _her_ son were taught boys will be boys-”

“Okay – look, I’m a lawyer,” she shoots back, keeping her voice measured but deadly, claws at the ready, back arched in almost a feline manner. She may be in the wrong, very, very in the wrong, but dammit if she’s going to admit it now, now that he’s brought her parenting into it, because that’s her kid, goddammit, her flesh and blood, and she’ll defend him to her last dying breath. “You really do not want to get into it with me-”

“So am I,” he challenges, cocking his head to one side and giving her what is quite possibly the most infuriating smirk in the world. “That why you’re not around to teach your kid wrong from right?”

She could reach over and slap him – she _really_ could – but thankfully Principal Figueroa finally has the good sense to intervene, though he looks downright horrified to have two angry lawyers in his office.

“All right, all right, folks, please,” he pacifies them, holding up his hands. “Now, Ms. Castillo, Christopher will lose his recess privileges for the rest of the week. Mr. Delfino, I’m very sorry about what happened to Caterina, and we’ll make sure it never happens again. And-” He swallows, fidgeting nervously in his chair. “I would… _strongly_ discourage either of you from pursuing legal action-”

‘Frank’ shoots up in his chair with an exasperated sigh, grabbing his briefcase and not so much as sparing her a cursory glance. “Where’s Cat? Gonna go make sure she’s okay.”

Principal Figueroa directs the both of them; her to the bench outside the counselor’s office, him to the nurse, and they go their separate ways, storming off in a huff. She doesn’t linger long with Christopher, just gives him a rushed scolding and a very foreboding _We’ll talk about this after school_ , before making her way out the front doors, back into the parking lot, and almost slipping on a patch of ice near the sidewalk, thanks to her broken heel and resulting wobbly gait.

She’s in the midst of trying to figure out what kind of legal action she could take if she actually _were_ to fall when a voice sounds out behind her.

“Careful. You fall, you might give ‘em the lawsuit they’re so afraid of.”

Laurel spins around, and of all people it’s that Frank standing there, one hand tucked into the pocket of his overcoat, the other holding his briefcase, eyes dancing with mirth. Immediately she tenses, tugging her own coat a bit tighter around herself and shivering, cursing her choice of a pencil skirt this morning. He doesn’t look angry anymore, though she wouldn’t put it past this kind of dad to follow her to her car and cuss her out and/or try to kill her; she can never be sure, and she may be an optimist at times when it comes to parenting, but as a lawyer she’s trained to assume the worst.

She’s come to learn there are roughly three archetypes of dads, anyway; the assholes, the deadbeats, and the very, very rare good ones. If she had to guess, based on first impressions, she thinks she’d assign this Frank to the first category.

Laurel exhales sharply, putting the thought out of her mind and staring out at the icy parking lot around them. “They need to be salting out here. Someone’s gonna fall and then they will.” She pauses, narrowing her eyes as he approaches. “Look, if you’re here to fight with me, you should know I don’t have any scruples whatsoever about running you down with my car.”

Frank blinks. “I, uh, just wanted to say I’m sorry. I was kinda a dick back there, but-” He glances around, as if a car is about to come ploughing towards him at any second. “I mean, if you’re serious about this car thing, maybe I should-”

“No, I-” she rushes to correct herself, sighing. “I’m sorry too; I should never have said that thing about boys being boys. That was inexcusable.”

He gives a flippant little shrug. “’S okay.”

“No, it’s not. It… normalizes male aggression and toxic masculinity and gender stereotypes. I, uh, I do DV. I should know better, it’s just-” She bites out a humorless chuckle. “It’s been one hell of a shitty fucking day.” Shitty week, really. Shitty _year_.

It’s more than she’d curse, normally; she’s had to learn to mind her tongue around Christopher since he was born, lest his vocabulary quickly expand to include just about every profanity in the book, but with other parents it gives her a sort of freedom, and although Frank looks taken aback, he doesn’t seem offended by it.

“It’s fine. We all have ‘em.”

She shakes her head, running a hand through her hair. “I’m sorry, for what Chris did, too. He doesn’t do stuff like that, ever. I don’t know what got into him.”

“Sorry I went after your parenting,” Frank replies, a bit sheepish. “That was uncalled for.”

“No, it’s okay,” she says, releasing another dark burst of a laugh. “Not like I’m good at it anyway.”

“Nah, I think we all think that. I’m sure you’re a killer mom.” He smirks, and this time it’s not infuriating. He follows it up with a wink, and her heart skips a beat when the low winter sun makes his eyes gleam, shimmer like a rippling, crystal-clear pond. “Think we’re done with our apology fest now?”

That gets a laugh out of her; a real one, light and relaxed as a breeze, and the sound almost surprises her. She barely recognizes it.

She never laughs like that anymore.

“Uh, yeah. For now. Unless of course I follow through on the whole running you down with my car thing,” she quips, pretending to consider it. “Then I’d have… a lot to apologize for.”

He chortles, then sobers up, looking at her with a gentle intensity that almost unnerves her – but not in a bad way. Not in a bad way at all.

“Yeah, well,” he says, voice low and raspy with something like tenderness, amusement in his eyes. “Let’s avoid that if possible. I’m tryin’ to stick around for Cat long as I can.”

“That’s a beautiful name, Caterina. Italian?”

“The last name didn’t make it obvious?” he jokes, and she smiles again, marveling at how easy it is to smile, around him, how free her lips feel to express her emotions, how plainly _at ease_ she is when she could swear she spends every other moment of her life carefully measuring her emotions.

“You said you were a lawyer?” she asks, and he shrugs again, looking a bit like he’s been caught in a lie.

“Sorta true,” he answers. “I work for one.”

“Oh. Paralegal?”

Another shrug. “Somethin’ like that.”

She quirks an eyebrow. “Did you just say that to scare poor Principal Fig?”

“’Course, did you see it? That guy was seconds away from crappin’ his pants with two pissed off lawyers in his office.”

He’s close, Laurel thinks; far closer than he should be standing for a stranger, for someone she barely knows, overstepping his bounds, getting a bit too friendly even though it’s not exactly unwelcome, on her end. She won’t deny he’s good looking, very much so, dark-haired and blue-eyed, and she doesn’t think she saw a ring on his finger, earlier, but she can’t be sure, doesn’t want to fall prey to some philandering piece of shit husband who screws his way around suburbia in his spare time. So her walls go up, almost automatically, and she shuts down, the smile withering on her lips like a flower in the bitter cold around them.

“I, uh, gotta run,” she tells him, suddenly. “I have a hearing at two, and I’m really trying to turn this day around, so.”

He nods, and steps back, the spell broken, the pull between them evaporating. “Yeah. Sure. Good luck. I hope your terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day lets up.”

“Yeah.” She nods, feels her throat and chest lock up in tandem, tightening and twisting. That book is one of Christopher’s favorites, has been since he was almost too little to understand it, but she has to admit, this day feels _significantly_ less horrible and terrible and very bad now, by some miracle. “I’ll see you around, I’m sure.”

Frank gives her a nod, bids her goodbye, and with that she leaves him, wobbling her way over to her car, but chancing a look back at him before she gets more than five paces in the other direction.

There’s no ring on his finger. Laurel can’t pretend she doesn’t feel something turn over heavily in her chest when she notices.

 

~

 

Chris is pouty and atypically silent during the drive home from daycare, as if mulling something over, already far too introspective and brooding for his age, and it isn’t until bedtime that Laurel is able to extract some sort of reasoning for the snowball fiasco from him. She doesn’t yell, ever, because Laurel grew up with a father who yelled, that man who taught her to cower in fear every time a man raised his voice at her, taught her fear instead of love, and every single day she tries her hardest to be a better parent to her son than hers were to her.

She loves little Christopher completely, unconditionally, fiercely, her only companion for these past nearly seven years, the only truly good thing she’s ever done in her life, and she just wants to be _better_ , for him, the best she can possibly be – so she doesn’t yell, doesn’t want to ever make him afraid of her.

She’s firm. He _does_ lose his television privileges for a week. But she doesn’t yell.

“Mom?” he asks, as she tucks his Ninja Turtle sheets around him likes she does every night; a ritual she makes sure never to miss regardless of work, even though he’s started to protest something so babyish as he’s grown older. His voice is high and reedy, a little timid, worrying his teeth across his bottom lip, again in a way that feels far too adult for his age. “Can I ask you something?”

“What, baby?”

“If you like somebody,” he begins, folding his arms over the sheets, “what do you do to make them like you back?”

Laurel gnaws on a grin, reaching up and threading her fingers through his thick, wiry hair. “Does this have anything to do with Caterina Delfino and the snowball incident?”

Apparently he must have thought he was being sly, because his eyes widen for a moment before he looks away, a bit guiltily. “Maybe.”

“Well,” she says, voice adopting that tender, singsong lilt she only ever uses with him, “for starters, it’s probably not the best idea to throw things at them.”

“How else are they supposed to notice you then?” he inquires, wrinkling his nose, as though perplexed by the idea there’s any other way to win someone’s affections, and Laurel laughs.

If she’s being honest, she’s not entirely sure; when she was young she had more than her fair share of suitors doing ridiculously stupid things to get her attention, and more often than not it’d worked.

God. _When she was young_. She feels ancient.

“Talk to them. Do nice things for them, like… pick them flowers.” There’s a familiar weight swelling behind her ribs, suddenly, that ache she’s carried with her everywhere for so long that by now it feels normal, like nothing out of the ordinary after seven years of that shadow hanging over her. She presses a playful finger to her son’s nose, admiring the glow of his tawny skin in the lamplight. “Your daddy always used to bring me flowers. Roses. Not laurels. He could never find those. Always tried but… never could.”

“Did it work?” Chris asks, wide-eyed, and she laughs again, though this one is thick, rueful.

“You’re here, aren’t you?” she teases, reaching down and tickling his stomach. He erupts into a fit of helpless, squeaky laughter, thrashing around from side to side, and she feels the tears well down in her eyes, the stop in her throat releasing. “Yes. I suppose it did.”

“You think I should do that for her?”

Laurel arches a brow. “You really like this girl, _mijo_?”

Another shrug. “Think so. I really wanna be her friend. Wasn’t tryin’ to hurt her with the snowball or nothin’. I just wanted to play.”

She hums, rubbing her lips together in thought. “Saying you’re sorry is always a good place to start. An apology goes a long way when you make a mistake.”

“It got all in her hair,” he remarks glumly, giving a little huff. “And she cried. I felt bad.”

Laurel softens, right then, because of course he hadn’t thrown the snowball with malicious intent; he never would. He’s a soft and gentle creature like his father was, capable of nothing but kindness in that pure, unsullied, bright-eyed way only children are. He reminds her of Wes in so many countless ways; sometimes, out of her peripheral vision, she’ll catch a glimpse of little Christopher and swear it’s him – albeit three feet shorter and missing his two front teeth. Sometimes she thinks he inherited nothing from her, nothing at all.

Sometimes she thinks it’s better that way.

“You’ll make it right,” she soothes, leaning in and pressing a kiss to his forehead. She stays there for a moment, breathing in the smell of him; soap and warm skin, distinctive in that indescribable way that’s so utterly, totally Christopher. “You always do.” She draws back. “Now go to bed, okay? And don’t let me catch you up late reading again.”

Most parents would probably think that the opposite of a problem; if she’s being honest, Laurel doesn’t, really, which is where that implicit approval of _don’t let me catch you_ comes in, her chiding only half-serious. Christopher gives a disgruntled little huff, again, rolling over and closing his eyes, and Laurel leaves him with that, lingering in the doorway for a moment longer than she needs to, just looking at him.

Sometimes she doesn’t think she knew how to love, before Christopher, if she was really capable of the emotion or simply pretended to feel it because it was what she believed she should do, what was expected of her. She thinks she’d loved Wes, though they’d been together for so short a time that looking back she can’t really be sure, the lens distorted by the passing of the years and by his death. She thinks it’s always easier to love someone after they’re gone, to set them on a pedestal as some unachievable standard, some paragon.

She thinks that had been love, then, and she knows love now, the love of her son, which is most days the only thing that fuels her – but there’s a space inside her that feels decidedly empty, a near-constant throb of loneliness, one she can’t really define, can’t pinpoint its source. It feels like a half-remembered dream, that feeling, what love had been like once; an echo of a memory that fades more by the day.

With that ache still heavy like a boulder embedded beneath her breastbone, Laurel reaches up and flicks off the light.

 

~

 

That’s the last she sees of Frank Delfino for a month, and as the weeks pass it’s easy to put him from her mind, throw herself into work and Christopher, the two axes around which her earth rotates. It’s not that she’s particularly discontent, but she feels miles away from content, either; the encounter, however seemingly unremarkable, had shaken something loose in her, something long-forgotten, a part of her life she’d buried deep and resolved to forget, for Christopher’s sake and her own. But now that something has latched onto her like a leech and keeps growing, larger and larger, demanding her attention, until it’s impossible to ignore, until she knows there’s no way she can go back to how things were before.

She’s neither happy nor miserable, nor content. Nor really any definite place in between. She just feels stagnant, a distinct sort of dissatisfaction; restlessness, almost, like the world is calling out for her and she’s trapped, like it’s the voice of her lost youth, yearning for adventure and excitement and something other than this godawful flatness.

It’s possible meeting Frank Delfino has triggered some sort of early onset midlife crisis. She swears if she stares at herself in the mirror long enough she can actually see her individual hairs turning grey.

She may not _see_ Frank for four weeks, but she hears enough about his daughter from a love-struck Christopher, who tries to serenade her more than once on his recorder in music class and plucks the dandelions growing just beyond the fence at recess to bring to her. She’s not going to lie: he has a surprising amount of game for a six-year-old, though she really hopes it stops developing here and doesn’t balloon into a real problem later on.

She isn’t around the school much, since his daycare picks him up most days, and she sure as hell isn’t a PTA mom – and if had to guess, she doesn’t think Frank is the PTA type either, though it’s not like it matters anyway; the lack of a ring on his finger doesn’t mean he isn’t dating, doesn’t mean he and Caterina’s mother aren’t together but not married. It’s not until the night of the Christmas play that their paths cross again, when every parent from the first grade is herded into the school’s stuffy auditorium on the twentieth for the cheesy holiday staple.

She’s munching on a store-bought Christmas cookie and perusing the program when Frank sidles into the seat next to her, and she looks up when she notices movement out of her periphery, just in time for him to sink down at her side. Like her, he’s in his clothes from work, one of the full-time working parents she can tell the judgey clique of stay-at-home-moms seated three rows back scorn, and flashes her a grin when their eyes meet.

“Hey,” he greets. “So I see you survived your no good, horrible, very bad day after all.”

A smile peeks through her usually carefully-maintained veneer. “Just barely. I’m still standing.”

“’S good. I’m glad,” Frank remarks, then glances down at the program in his hands, flipping through it idly before glancing sideways at her, demeanor playful, relaxed. She can’t help but notice that he’s sitting closer than necessary, leaning ever so slightly her way, and she should move away; she really, really should, but she doesn’t. She doesn’t _want_ to. “You, uh, ready for Andrew Jackson Elementary’s Christmas Extravaganza?”

“It seems kinda religious for a public school,” Laurel observes, reading through the cast of characters and list of songs. “Jesus and Joseph and Mary and all that.”

“Think they tossed a Dreidel or two in there for good measure. Half-hearted diversity’s better than nothin’, right?”

“Guess so,” she concedes. “Caterina’s playing Mary?”

He nods, eyes lighting up at the mention of her name. “Yeah. She’s my little star – though I think I’m gonna have to have the teen pregnancy talk with her after this. Sayin’ no to guys who tell you they’re the Angel Gabriel and wanna knock you up with Jesus.”

She scoffs. “I know Chris was gunning pretty hard for Joseph because he wanted to be her husband. Ended up getting Wiseman #5, though.”

“Thought there were only three.”

Laurel shrugs. “Guess they expanded their entourage.”

They lapse into silence for a moment, and it’s pleasant, not a burden, just a state of being, listening to the sounds of chatter around them, until Frank clears his throat and angles himself toward her.

“Y’know,” he starts, shaking his head, “every day after daycare Cat keeps coming home with all these dandelions. At first she wouldn’t say where they were from, but finally, she told me Chris keeps bringin’ ‘em to her at recess.”

She hums. “Mmm. Well. He’s quite the good old-fashioned lover boy.”

“Raised him well,” he teases. “He’s very chivalrous.”

“Minus the snowball incident. Though I was informed that _was_ his first attempt at romancing her.” She pauses, cheeks taking on a bit of color, though she knows he can’t see it in the dimly lit room. “I… may or may not have given him the idea for the flowers.”

He laughs. “You teachin’ your kid how to put the moves on my kid now? Not sure what to say to that.”

The lights go dim suddenly, signaling the beginning of the play, and a hush falls over the room accordingly, the overzealous moms and dads crowding toward the front for the perfect picture. Laurel isn’t above preserving things for posterity either, though, and snaps a few pictures of her own on her phone, as does Frank, who puffs up as soon as Caterina steps on stage, clad in an ill-fitting blue dress and holding a baby doll crookedly, in a way that would probably kill an actual infant. She’s a tiny girl, pale and delicate and waifish, with dark, curly hair and eyes the same color as his. She could almost be Frank’s mini-me, so striking is the resemblance.

And she doesn’t have to look at him to know how his eyes are shining with pride, a subconscious smile making his lips twitch, beaming as he watches her, but once or twice she dares it, as furtively as she can manage. He’d defended her so staunchly before, more than willing to go to bat for her honor, and Laurel knows, then, she was wrong before, about sorting him into the asshole category.

First impressions are usually right. In this case, though, she doesn’t think that’s true.

It’s a properly charming disaster of a play; no one really speaks, because first graders can’t be trusted to learn any significant amount of lines, but they do sing, the music teacher hopelessly trying to keep tempo on the piano before eventually giving up and playing away until the tinkling of the keys mix with the thin little voices on stage to form a discordant, off-key mess. They file out into the lobby afterward to reunite with their young Shakespearean actors, and Christopher locates her easily, dressed in a baggy brown shirt that looks more like a burlap sack on him, swallowing him right up, while Frank vanishes into the crowd in another direction.

“Mom!” he cries, raising his high-pitched voice over the cacophony of other voices around them. He dashes up to her, giving her that huge, toothless smile that melts her heart. “Did you see me? Did I do good?”

“You did _amazing_ ,” she gushes, bending down to his level and ruffling his hair and planting a kiss on his forehead with an exaggerated _mwah_ – much to Christopher’s dismay, because he jerks back slightly, moving his head out of kissing range. “You were the best Wiseman ever in the history of Wisemen.”

“I didn’t get to carry any myrrh,” he laments, pouting. “Or any Frankenstein.”

It’s an honest mistake, and Laurel can’t help but chuckle. “That’s okay. All you need is your… wisdom. Your brain. That’s more important than any present.”

“Think so?”

“I know so.”

Chris wrinkles his little brow and turns away, scanning the room for a second, before his eyes land on Cat and Frank standing across the way, with Frank stooped down, listening to Cat recap something intently, rapt and lost in the world of her story. There’s none of that faint disinterest she sees all too often in the other parents at this school, the ones who sit through plays and recitals tapping away on their phones, ones who make it obvious they would rather be dead than paying any measure of attention to their kid. It’s always made her so irrationally angry, to know that some parents take their children for granted when Christopher is her entire world, when she nearly lost him so soon after he was born, rushed off to the NICU with breathing problems and underdeveloped lungs.

Frank doesn’t. That much is clear. He’s enraptured by her words, mesmerized, body and soul, and after a moment Chris must notice her staring because he leans in close, hissing out a whisper.

“That’s Cat and her dad. Cat did really good.”

“She did,” Laurel agrees, cocking her head to one side. Chris fidgets a little, rocking back and forth on his ankles as he looks their way, and she gets the signal quickly. “Wanna go talk to her?”

He fidgets again, looking away glumly. “No. It’s okay.”

And she melts just a bit more, right then, because she sees so much of Wes in him like this, in his shyness, his soft-spoken nature. He can be loud and boisterous when he wants to, sure, but when it comes to Cat, this tiny girl he’s smitten with, he’s self-effacing, timid, doesn’t want to bother her – especially because Laurel isn’t altogether certain how successful his recorder serenades and dandelion bouquets have been in wooing her. He looks at her almost like he might look at a toy in a store window, with quiet, worshipful longing, with the knowledge he should keep his distance.

“You sure?”

“Yeah,” he mutters. “I’m su-”

“Christopher!”

A tiny voice erupts behind them, and Laurel looks up just in time to see none other than the famous, curly-headed Cat herself scurrying up to them, bouncing up and down with that sort of bottomless pit of energy only six-year-olds possess. Chris turns at once, breaking out into an unsure smile, and Cat returns it with one missing just as many teeth as his.

“Hi,” he greets, a bit cautious, still a bit shy, voice soft, and Laurel rests back, watching the exchange with a smile. She’s more than content to be left out of this if he decides that’s how it should be, but Chris seems to remember her presence all at once because suddenly he turns, nodding at her. “This is my mom.”

“Hi,” Cat says, reaching up a hand and wagging it furiously, clearly possessing none of Christopher’s inherent bashfulness. Laurel greets her back, but Cat doesn’t seem much invested in her, because before long she looks back to Chris. “Mrs. Hatfield wants us to take off our costumes in the music room. C’mon. Last one there’s a rotten egg!”

Christopher nods with solemn understanding, still a loss for words and all adorably clammed up, before scampering off after her like a puppy when she takes off in the direction of a hallway nearby, where a modest pilgrimage of kids have already begun to march, some with parents, some without. Laurel calls out after him, telling him to meet her back out here, though he and Cat seem to have fallen into very scintillating conversation and he can’t be bothered to hear what she has to say – and Laurel supposes she’ll have to get used to that, not always being the most important woman in his life, anymore. It terrifies her, too, if she’s being honest, seeing his interest in girls already; terrifies her that he’ll grow up too fast like she was forced too, when really she wants to keep him a baby forever, protect him from the evils of the world, the bitter harshness of reality. If she could go back to the months he spent inside her, nestled safe in her body where no one and nothing could hurt him, she thinks she would without question.

She rises to stand, dusting off her knees, and wonder of wonders, when she looks up she sees none other than Frank making his way through the crowd over to her, casting a fond glance back at their kids as they disappear around the corner together. He smiles when he gets close enough, tucking his hands into his pockets, rubbing the back of his neck, and coming to a stop.

“Well,” he remarks, playfully, “seems like Mary might’ve left Joseph for one of the Wisemen. Jerusalem TMZ is gonna have a field day.”  

It’s a dumb dad joke, but it’s still funny, and she lets herself laugh. “A biblical scandal. Who even knows who the baby in the manger’s real father is?”

“Chris did good. Real good,” he tells her, and the grin on her face threatens to grow ever wider, like a pot boiling over its edges with pride for him.

“He did. He was bummed he didn’t get to hold any Frankenstein, though.”

Frank barks a laugh. “Frankenstein’s monster meets the nativity. Now that’d be one hell of a Christmas play.”

Once more she’s struck by how easy it is to talk to him, how effortless their banter feels; she’ll be the first to admit she doesn’t get out and socialize much anymore, her job and Christopher monopolizing far too much of her time. She was always happier alone anyway, and she has Michaela – and as a result, Uncle Asher – in the city, and the mothers of a few of Christopher’s other friends, but there’s still a feeling of isolation she can’t dispel, of yearning for more than surface-level relationships. For something deeper.

She wants to _feel_. Fiercely. Wholly. Dangerously. She wants her psyche split open and her brains unspooled, her world shaken. She’s so tired of _safe_.

She’s so tired of being alone.

The realization unsettles her – and she’s sure there’s a reason it’d come while she was around Frank, because she has a terrible, awful, incredible inkling that maybe he can be the one to give that to her, give her something deeper. Give her _something_. She knows men and she can read their intentions as easy as she might read a book, and Frank always stands a few inches too close, never seems quite able to keep his eyes off her no matter what he’s doing, and after tonight, after the conspicuous absence of both of their non-existent significant others, he seems to have been given the green light.

“You, uh,” he begins, a bit awkwardly, but a smooth, practiced sort of awkwardness, “you ever wanna grab a cup of coffee, sometime? It’d be on me.”

And whoomp. There it is.

“Like a date?” she asks, point-blank, stomach sinking just as her walls go up, inexplicably, because fantasies that exist only in her mind are all well and good, and really, logically, she _had_ seen this coming, but now that it’s here it feels like a thoroughly terrible idea, one that can certainly end only in disaster.

Frank gives a shrug that tries just a bit too hard to be casual. “Can be. Doesn’t have to be. Up to you.”

For a long moment she just stares at him, blinking – because every bone in her body along with her heart is screaming at her to say yes, to take a chance, to jump off this cliff’s edge, let him reawaken that long-dead part of her, because he could; she knows he could. Everything about Frank is just right, his boundless love for his little girl and his wit and his smirk and his looks – because he’s hot, there’s no denying it, really goddamn _hot_ – and yet everything feels just _wrong_ , too, like she’s being not only disloyal to Chris but to Wes, the father of her child, the ghost she shares her bed with every night.

There’s a tiny, niggling voice in the back of her head telling her he’d want her to be happy, to move on. But there’s a much louder voice drowning that one out, recounting the reasons this will never work, reminding her that she made a promise to herself never to be the sort of mother who parades a series of boyfriends in and out of her son’s life and fucks him up as a result. She barely knows Frank at all, doesn’t know his true intentions; she’s a package deal, and she comes with her son, and if she lets him into her life she’s letting him into Christopher’s too, and that’s off-limits. That’s further than she’s willing to go, just yet.

Sure, it’s just coffee. But after so many years of being alone, it feels like infinitely more.

Laurel bristles, finally, and lowers her eyes. “I, uh… I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”

Frank doesn’t say anything. He deflates, rather obviously, and the sorrow of rejection bleeds into the blues of his eyes like storm clouds rolling in over clear skies, but he says nothing, just waits for her to continue. He doesn’t look angry, insulted. He’s just _looking_ at her, and she thinks that might be even worse.

“I-” She sighs. “I just-”

“Hey, ‘s okay,” he interrupts her gently, no malice or bite in his tone. Just patience. Acceptance. Understanding. “You don’t gotta give a reason. I get it.”

She’s not sure what it is, precisely, that he _gets_ , but she has the sense he understands, somehow, that Christopher is the only man in her life, that she’s terrified of anyone she chooses to let in hurting him, intentionally or _un_ intentionally; she’s sure he must have similar fears with Cat. Yet he chose her. Offered to let her in. Saw something in her that must have made him trust her with his daughter, too. This is a two-way street, she realizes, this trust, but that still doesn’t mean she can say yes, bare her underbelly to him, her most vulnerable part. Her son. Her entire world.

“Probably for the best,” Frank says, trying rather half-heartedly to make a joke. “Wouldn’t wanna cut their budding romance short, huh?”

“No,” she tells him, and she feels breathless, burning all over. Burning for _him_. “I… we wouldn’t.” We wouldn’t wanna get in too deep. Wouldn’t wanna start something we can’t dig ourselves out of, start a fire that would consume us and burn out too soon.

Because Laurel has a sense that’s precisely what would happen. This would get hot, heavy, and real – _too_ real too quickly, and it would become too much to handle, too binding to free herself from. There’s something about Frank that screams addiction, like he could so easily become her vice, her obsession. She doesn’t know how she knows, just that she does, because every particle and molecule and atom in her body seems to pine for his, pulling her toward him like something cosmic, some force of the universe she can’t explain or ever hope to understand.

And she barely knows him. And _God_ , she just wants to know him better.

But coffee is off-limits, and so is he. And so they go their separate ways that evening with little fanfare but so much left lingering in the air between them, and maybe that night, when the house is quiet and still, she dreams of a man in her bed, of Wes, rutting hard and hot between her thighs until she comes with mind-splintering, body-jarring intensity.

And maybe she looks up, after, and finds crystalline-blue eyes staring back down at her. And maybe it was never Wes at all.


	2. II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title change!! Because I'm the queen of those. New title is from the song Model Homes by In-Flight Safety.

When Chris very politely requests a playdate with Cat, she can’t say she’s surprised.

With friends come playdates; it’s the natural order of things in grade school, after all, and she’d been a fool to think she could avoid Frank very long. So Chris gets his number from Caterina at school and brings it home to her, and when she texts him she makes a calculated effort to maintain a certain distance in her tone; professionalism, almost, because she’s texting him to arrange the logistics of a playdate between their kids and nothing more. And why would there _be_ anything more.

Laurel isn’t going to pretend that she’s not secretly thrilled to have his number, though. It’s a little electric jolt of excitement in her veins she hasn’t felt in years; a perilous drop in her stomach, like plunging down a hill on a rollercoaster.

They choose the park on a Saturday afternoon, at first – neutral enough territory, she figures – but freezing rain foils that plan, and so reluctantly Laurel agrees to bring Christopher over to their place instead, though she tries to pretend it doesn’t cause her disquiet. They live in an old brownstone within walking distance of the school, with a large red door and black shutters and a certain cozy charm about it, especially blanketed with snow in winter. Christopher goes bounding up the steps so quickly she’s afraid he’ll slip on a patch of ice, but he makes it up unscathed and rings the doorbell, almost vibrating with excitement, before Laurel has a moment to prepare herself, tucking her hands into the pockets of her wool wrap coat.

The door opens, and Frank comes into view, clad in a green sweater and dark-wash jeans. He smiles when he sees her, the sort of smile that betrays anxiety, existing only to give the impression of seeming at ease, before remembering the real reason she’s here and glancing down at little Christopher, who peers up at him reverently, understandably intimidated by the father of his would-be girlfriend. He’s a tiny blue marshmallow compared to Frank, wrapped in his puffer coat. Frank smiles as soon as he sees him, and Laurel tries to feign nonchalance, when really seeing him smile at her son like that makes her heart beat in what feels like every part of her body, from her toes to her throat, all simultaneously pulsing as if they're about to burst out of her skin.

“Hey,” he greets, stepping aside to let them in out of the cold. “Come in. Cat’s up in her room – _‘ey Cat, your friend’s here_!” Chris steps inside hurriedly, but Laurel hesitates, and when Frank notices he furrows his brow. “Come in, it’s freezin’ out there.”

“I can just run by and pick him up later,” she tells him, stiffly. “If that’s easier.”

“Laurel,” he says, lowly, and God, she can’t explain what that does to her; he’s never said her name before, and it sends an almost vertiginous current pounding through her, the way he combines the ‘a’ and the ‘u’ into almost a long ‘o’ sound with his accent. “It’s fine. I’m makin’ lunch, c’mon.”

She hesitates, and it’s another very visible hesitation, but eventually she nods and steps inside, removing her snowy boots and coat by the doorway before following Frank down the hall. Christopher has disappeared somewhere with Cat, probably upstairs, and Laurel takes the opportunity to assess her surroundings, all the eggshell white walls and brighter white molding and tall windows letting in the dreary grey daylight. It looks newer than the exterior, clearly having been remodeled not long ago, and the décor is sleek, modern, well-balanced; it seems almost to have a woman’s touch, but then again maybe Frank just has a hidden penchant for interior decorating.

“Want somethin’ to drink?” he calls out behind him, as they make their way into the kitchen. The hallway opens up into the kitchen and living room, the lack of the door between them making the space feel wide open, enormous. “Nonalcoholic, ‘course. Though I guess it’s five o’ clock somewhere.”

“Water’s fine,” Laurel murmurs, distracted as she takes in his home, admiring an eclectic metal wall-hanging over the table and trying her best to ignore the tension between them, the way the air feels static and alive and jumping, the way it does just before a thunderstorm. She takes a seat on a barstool at the counter, folding her hands. “You have a lovely home.”

“Gets the job done.” He shrugs. “I’m makin’ my world-famous spaghetti and meatballs. Figured I’d feed Chris something – and you, too, if you want some.”

It smells divine, a warm, homey aroma of spices and herbs and tomato sauce. Laurel considers refusing politely, as she probably should, but ultimately shrugs, taking the glass of water with ice he offers her and flashing a grateful smile.

“I won’t say no to free food,” she tells him. “It smells incredible.”

“It’s the only dad thing I’m good at, cooking. Though, I must say,” he informs her mock-seriously, heading back to the stove, “I do know how to do a _mean_ French braid, after hell of a lot of YouTube instructional videos. Figured I should learn how to do that stuff for her. Since, y’know.” He pauses. “Her mom’s not around.”

His voice tightens, not a lot, but enough to be audible, that barely-there strain in his vocal cords. Laurel rubs her lips together, reminding herself to mind her own damn business, until her curiosity outruns her brain’s ability to rein it in.

“What… Where is her mom?”

Frank doesn’t give her the impression she’s prying, sticking her nose where it doesn’t belong, though if he’d asked her the same question she doesn’t think she would’ve been able to receive it half as well, without shutting down and evading it entirely.

“Don’t know. She took off, right after Cat was born. She was an ex-girlfriend, Sasha. We didn’t date for that long. I didn’t even know she was pregnant ‘til one day she showed up at my door with a baby and told me she was mine then ran for the hills. Haven’t heard from her since.” He chuckles, trying to maintain this false air of levity between them, not sink too deep into memories that are too painful, lest they get lost in them and be unable to claw their way back out. “Wasn’t even sure she was mine, at first.”

Laurel runs her finger around the rim of the glass, listening to the hollow ringing sound it produces and watching condensation form on the outside. “You ever do a DNA test?”

He shakes his head, turning away from the stove and resting his hands on the counter where she sits. There’s a pleasant flush on his cheeks from the heat of the kitchen, a damp rag slung over his shoulder. He’s looking at her in a way that ties her intestines into knots.

He’s looking at her in a way that really, _really_ makes her want to kiss him senseless.

“Nah, I figured out pretty quick she was. She’s got my eyes.” He grins, and it’s a distant grin, a real one; one Laurel almost feels like she shouldn’t be sharing in the sight of. “My hair. Even my smile. Think she’s way too much like me for her own good.”

“I worry about that with Chris,” she confesses, eyes lowered. “But, he seems to be more his dad than he is me. Eyes and hair and ears and everything.”

“His dad around?” Frank asks, nudging the question forward with the utmost care, in the same way a mother bird nudges her baby out of the nest to take flight.

Laurel’s jaw shifts.

“He’s dead,” is all she gives him, before taking another gulp of the water as if taking a shot – which suddenly sounds pretty damn good right about now, if she’s being honest.

Frank seems fully aware this is dangerous territory, a place she doesn’t want to venture back into, so he nods, doesn’t press further. “I’m sorry.”

So often those words are perfunctory, brittlely polite, but coming from Frank they’re laden with sincerity, and he’s leaning forward on the counter slightly, watching her with those blue eyes she never dares to look at for too long for fear she’ll find herself lost in them, however cliché and ridiculous that is. He is sorry – and she is, too, for that tragedy that turned her into this bitter, grief-hardened creature, like an abused animal, wary of the world around her and everyone in it.

Her youth had been a causality to tragedy, to motherhood. She tries not to feel old.

Tries, and fails. Because she does. Because she _is_.

“Car accident,” she finally divulges, still refusing to look at him. She focuses her eyes on the little dewdrops of condensation on the glass, smoothing over them idly with her index finger, popping them like bubbles. “Well – he wasn’t in a car. He was on his bike. He rode that thing everywhere.” She chuckles darkly, forcing down the lump in her throat that’s stuck there like a bramble clinging to cloth “A hit and run. Just pure shitty fucking luck. Could’ve happened to anyone. But it happened to him.”

Frank doesn’t say anything. There’s nothing really to say, and normally she would stop now, stop here, but something compels her to keep going, and so Laurel rises to stand, pacing around the room before ending up in front of a back window, overlooking a tiny plot of grass which she figures must function as their backyard.

“I didn’t find out I was pregnant until a few weeks later,” Laurel tells him, though she’s muttering it to the wall more than she is to him, and she has no clue if he can even hear a word she’s saying. “We met in law school. I was in my 2L year. His name was Wes.”

She finishes there, rather abruptly, not sure how to continue, what else there is to say; nothing, really, because her and Wes’s story had ended equally as abruptly, no closure, no last goodbye, nothing but a few numbly-spoken words uttered to his body before giving the doctors the go-ahead to switch off his life support.

She isn’t crying, because she gave up crying a long time ago; her tear ducts stopped working, or maybe she simply ran dry of tears, forsook emotion altogether, a desert in a woman’s body. Instead she stands there, motionless and numb, limbs all pins and needles, heavy and fuzzy as if her entire body has fallen asleep. The only thing that brings her back is the sudden touch of a hand on her upper arm, just below her shoulder; Frank’s hand, it registers, placed there in a show of comfort, of solidarity.

He understands. He may not have lost Cat’s mother to death but he lost her all the same, has to live with the knowledge that his daughter lost her too, lost the stability of two parents, and Laurel can sympathize with that; that feeling of failure, that bone-splitting, spine-prickling fear of not being enough, not having enough love inside her to compensate for the both of them. Frank doesn’t say anything, but he doesn’t need to; she can understand him perfectly in the silence. He says everything he needs to with the touch of his hand.

“You, uh,” he clears his throat, dropping his hand down. “You said you went to law school. Where’d you go?”

And there he goes, trying to get them back to some semblance of normal, some carefully-devised façade of _okay_ , and normally Laurel might be put off, but for some reason she feels inclined to let him.

“Middleton,” she answers, letting him drag her away from the darkness of her mind, back to the present, back to him. She finds herself fascinated how skillfully he manages it. “Here in the city.”

“Yeah, my boss’s a professor there. You might’ve heard of her. Keating. Annalise.”

The name rings a bell. “Oh, yeah. She teaches Criminal Law, right? I almost took her. Got placed in another section, though.”

“I help out in her classes, sometimes. She hires interns to work with us.” Frank looks almost rueful, and he’s so close, he’s so close, and she’s also so, _so_ inclined to stay right where she is, let him draw closer still. “Guess we… just missed each other, huh?”

Laurel lets her eyes fall closed for a moment, lets herself be drawn into that world with him; a world in which she’d met him instead of Wes, fallen for him then, back when she was young and open and hopeful for the future. How different things could have been, had they not missed each other by mere inches, like two roads running parallel to each other, never to intersect.

She wouldn’t be able to tell you who moved first, who crossed the gully between them, eradicated that last little bit of distance; Frank, probably, but she won’t rule herself out either. How it happens doesn’t really matter, she decides; all that matters is that it does happen, and it’s hot and cold and so fast and so _slow_ , tongues dancing languidly, finding a rhythm with no trouble at all. Her mind is a bombardment of sensory input; the warmth of his lips and the spice of his taste and the woodsy musk of his cologne and the powerful darting of his muscles as he pulls her close, closer, like he can’t quite seem to get her close enough for his satisfaction. Like they’ll never be close enough until they meld into one.

The electricity that was in the air has coalesced into her blood, switching on her veins until they thrum like a grid of live wires beneath her skin. She can’t remember the last time she felt so alive. So _real_.

She doesn’t melt against him, form her body to his like clay; she stays firm, stands tall, lets him do the conforming instead, and he does. Frank melts against her so willingly, reaching up and brushing a lock of her hair behind her ear, his lips sealed over hers in a way that feels like he’s trying to absorb something very deep inside her; her essence, maybe, the innermost parts of who she is, her thoughts and dreams and memories. He kisses her as if he can learn everything about her with this kiss, and she’s never been kissed like this, never had so much taken from her, never had so much given in return.

She feels like she’s known him forever, somehow. Like their souls are made of the same stuff, whatever it is souls are comprised of.

It’s her that pulls away, because she always seems to be the one doing the pulling away, the shutting out, shutting _down_. She doesn’t quite have the willpower to totally extricate herself, though, and for a moment she lingers there, his hands fanning wide on her hipbones as he breathes her in, holding her fast and deep in his lungs as though sensing she’s on the brink of fleeing.

“I can’t,” she pants, shaking her head, bunching the fabric of his sweater up in her hands. She can’t. _Fuck_ , she wants to. She wants so badly to let go, but she guards herself instinctively, locked her heart away in an iron box and threw away the key the day Christopher was born, and he’s been the only one who’s ever been able to reach it. Until now. “I… I can’t, Frank.”

Frank doesn’t ask why. Frank doesn’t argue. Frank doesn’t say anything at all, just gives a silent, understanding nod, like he had before, because even if he may be ready for something like this, to take this chance, he knows she isn’t. Knows it’ll take patience and understanding and, most of all, time. Time. That illusion which rules over the entire world.

The worst part is, he seems willing to wait. She can’t decide what she thinks about that. Can’t muster the brainpower to decide _anything_ , in that instant.

She retreats wordlessly into the living room until the kids come down to eat lunch, and after that Laurel leads Christopher to the door, ignoring the way Frank’s eyes follow her, because he never quite manages to look away from her no matter what else is demanding his attention, and she doesn’t want him to. And she does. She wants nothing more. Wants nothing _less_.

She thanks him, and then she’s gone.

 

~

 

Laurel spends more time looking in the mirror these days than she used to.

It’s not out of vanity; she’s never been vain, has always been objectively aware of her own beauty but never truly able to recognize it herself no matter how often she stared at her reflection, that image which she always felt so disconnected from, deep down, like looking into the eyes of a stranger. It’s more out of a sense of general misery now, tracing the premature lines on her face, those craters which seem to grow deeper by the day, obsessing over the bags under her eyes and the flecks of grey she’s convinced she can see frosting her hair and her body, which is still thin and lithe and attractive but has never been the same since Christopher was through with it, her breasts larger, hanging lower, and her waist no longer tucking in quite as neatly as it used to.

She knows she’s being ridiculous. She’s only thirty-two. She’s still young enough, far from past her prime, but she longs for the sweetness of her youth, those Halcyon days, and she _feels_ old, even if she isn’t – not number-wise, at least. She feels like she’s been alive forever, for a thousand different years in a hundred different lives. Like her soul itself is exhausted.

It’s not that she isn’t happy. She couldn’t particularly be called _un_ happy. She loves her job, loves fighting for women who can’t fight for themselves, being their champion. She loves Christopher, loves eating breakfast with him on school days and going to his baseball games on Saturday afternoons and dancing around the house in their pajamas together on snow days, blasting Daydream Believer, his favorite song since he was old enough to have an appreciation for music. He’s her world. He’s been her world for as long as she can remember, and she’s never dated, never subscribed to the idea that Christopher needed a man to play the role of father in his life, that cliché _strong male role model_ that society has decided is requisite for growing boys.

Fuck society. She’s done all right by herself.

But now there’s Frank, holding out his hand, beckoning her to reenter the world with him; a world of uncertainty and fire and feeling, and she hates herself for it, but she’s scared. She’s always prided herself on being fearless, but she’s afraid, terrified of allowing him into her life, giving him the power to break her in an infinite number of very intricate, very irreparable ways, handing over that skeleton key.

But _fuck_ , she’s tired of being alone. Sleeping alone. Watching the doting fathers and mothers and children together at school, all those picture-perfect little nuclear families. She’s always thought that phrase was a bit of a double entendre, _nuclear family_ ; like it denotes the possibility of that family one day melting down and becoming a pulsing, toxic, radioactive mess – and based on her own familial experiences, she thinks, nine times out of ten, that’s precisely what happens. She doesn’t need or want that for Christopher.

Laurel sighs, putting the thoughts from her mind, swiping the steam from the shower off the mirror with her palm and revealing her foggy reflection beneath it. She’s wrapped in a fluffy white towel, hair damp and dripping, the sharp but delicate jut of her collarbone visible just above the fabric and droplets of water clinging to her décolletage. She drops her towel to appraise the rest of her body, pressing her fingers to her left breast, brushing the nipple, the rough, rosy skin of her areola. They’re not as pert as they once were. She feels like _nothing_ on her is as pert as it once was, as perky and supple and soft.

She’s still hot as hell. She _knows_ she is. And she doesn’t think of her younger years as being wasted on motherhood; it wasn’t a waste, not at all. She’s wiser, now, knows herself so much better than she did when she was young and foolish, knows what she wants and how to get it.

More precisely, _who_ she wants. _And_ how to get him.

Her eyes gravitate to her phone where it rests on the marble countertop, sitting there innocuously, the key to a new beginning. Something exciting. Something _real_. Frank hasn’t called or texted in the week that has elapsed since the playdate, and she knows he won’t; she seems to have communicated the message that she needs to be the one to make the first move, if the first move is ever made at all.

He could be good for Christopher. And for her. And it’s more than that. She wants him in a way she hasn’t wanted anything in so long.

So finally, her impulses overpower her common sense, and Laurel unlocks her phone, tapping out a simple message to him. She hesitates to hit send, at first, but decides there’s no goddamn point in chickening out now, and presses it, listening to the triumphant _swoosh_ as the words rocket off somewhere into the digital stratosphere, holding her fate within them.

- _You still good for that coffee?_

He is, of course.

 

~

 

Eventually they end up upgrading from coffee to hoagies, and Frank selects a rundown little shithole of a joint whose hoagies he professes to be the best in Philly – “just trust me.” She takes a long lunch break, and Frank leaves his post near campus and makes the trek across town even though she insists they can go somewhere more convenient, but he insists in that gentle way of his that makes her feel like it’s no big deal at all, and so best hoagies in Philly it is.

Her sandwich is downright monstrous, piled with salami and pepperoni and ham and an entire garden’s worth of vegetables. There’s no way she can eat it gracefully, and they both laugh as she tears into it, dribbling sauce on her chin and dropping half the ingredients out the bottom in the first bite. Frank devours his with equally little grace, until they’re both stuffed and Laurel is starting to succumb to a food coma.

They wander the streets with the time they have left, not headed anywhere in particular, walking for the sake of walking. It’s pleasantly aimless, and Laurel can’t remember the last time she actually _admired_ anything in the city, looked at a building as anything other than a building, the pedestrians around her as anything more than nuisances.

Frank is good at doing that, she thinks. Slowing her down. Easing her foot off the gas and letting her cruise.

“You know,” she tells him, grinning. It’s cold, and she’s walking close to him, and somehow she barely feels the bite, “I have to say… the hoagies definitely lived up to the hype. They should give you a kickback, for the free marketing.” He chuckles, and she pulls in a breath, burying her nose into her scarf. “I’ll have to bring Chris here sometime. He loves any kind of food he can get his hands on these days.”

“Double date, then,” he proposes, jokingly. “You ‘n me and our kids.”

She scoffs. “Let’s just stick to playdates for them for now.”

“Chris is a good kid. A really good kid. I never told you that, but-” He pauses, meeting her eyes. The sunlight catches the flecks of grey in his hair, his beard. “You did a real good job with him. Raisin’ kids… we’re always so scared we’re gonna screw ‘em up, somehow. Helps to have someone tell us we didn’t, once in a while.”

“Well,” she laughs, “there’s still plenty of time for me to screw up him, so. Don’t jinx it.”

Silence reigns for a while, but Laurel doesn’t mind; she’s gotten better at this, learning to be still, to listen to the silence. She’s the one who ends it, though, glancing his way, lips pursed tight.

“I’m scared he’ll end up screwed up anyway, even if I don’t… _do_ anything. I have bipolar, in my family. My mom.” She swallows thickly. “I almost didn’t have him because I was so scared he’d get it. It can skip generations. I still worry, all the time. I read all those baby books, y’know, What to Expect When You’re Expecting, and…” Laurel shakes her head. “None of them ever say anything about how much you worry.”

“They’re pretty shit instruction manuals, those books. Granted, by the time I read ‘em Cat was already here so it was kinda a moot point, but… Still. I get what you mean.” He chuckles, as they continue their stroll, finding a rhythm just as easily as they had during their kiss. “When it gets to bra shopping, periods, boys… Hell, I’m screwed. But I’ll do it for her. I’d do anything for her.” Frank looks her way, suddenly.  “You, uh, should come by the house sometime. Cat’s been wantin’ to practice braiding hair, and I’m not exactly equipped.”

Laurel hums, bumping his shoulder playfully. “Could always grow it out. You said you’d do anything for her, didn’t you?”

“Within reason,” he chuckles. “Not sure I could pull it off.”

“I think that’s debatable,” she chides, grinning, “but, yes. I’d love to.”

“Fair warnin’, though. She’s probably gonna end up tying your hair into like, fifty knots. Don’t think she knows the difference between braiding and tangling; I’ve had to give three of her dolls buzzcuts.”

“I’ll consider myself warned. I think I can handle it.”

They round a corner, walking along slowly. It isn’t a luxury she affords herself often, time; taking time to do things on purpose instead of rushing through them, cramming food down her throat for sustenance without tasting it and dashing down the street to get where she needs to go, feeling the breeze and smelling the air but not truly experiencing it. She has a busy life, sure, but somehow nothing ever really seems to happen, and she didn’t realize how badly she needed this, a break from the world, a moment to take everything in and simply exist.

“I’m glad you came,” Frank tells her, genuine. “Glad we upgraded from coffee too.”

Laurel comes to a stop, tucking her hands into the pockets of her coat. “I am too.” A pause. “It’s been a, uh… really long time, since I was on a date, actually.”

He raises an eyebrow. “You? No way, I don’t buy it.”

“Yes, way,” she replies, lowering her eyes, the smile falling from her lips. “It’s just been… me and Chris, since he was born. Even before that. The whole time I was pregnant. I was alone, in the delivery room.”

Frank frowns, as if hurt by the thought, wishing he could transport himself back and time and have been there with her. “You were?”

“It just…” She drifts off, and looks up, and he’s looking at her so tenderly she can almost feel his gaze upon her skin like a caress, sending a shudder darting down her spine, which she can’t pretend is only from the cold. “Felt like something I had to do by myself.”

“God, Laurel…” Frank falters, at a loss for words, and suddenly it’s not just tenderness in his eyes, anymore; suddenly it’s something almost like silent worship. “You’re amazing.”

She blinks. “What?”

“You’re amazing,” he repeats, more emphatically this time. He reaches out, resting a hand on her hip and drawing her into him, and her heart is hammering, running a mile a minute. The sounds of the city are a distant drone in the background, now, like insects; they all fade away, everything fades away, and suddenly there’s only Frank. “You’re so… strong.”

Laurel fidgets, but can’t help the grin that slips onto her lips, against her better nature. “Stop it.”

“No,” Frank refuses, gently. “’M not gonna stop. That’s one thing I learned, gettin’ older. There’s no time to waste not saying what you wanna say.” He thinks for a moment, and suddenly his seriousness evaporates, his eyes dancing with mirth. “Sorry, that too intense? I, uh, haven’t been on a date in forever either. My game ain’t what it used to be.”

“Yeah, well. I think your game’s just fine,” is all Laurel breathes, before standing on her tiptoes, raising herself up, and kissing him silent.

It’s something close to chaste, this kiss; not nearly matching the one before in intensity, but that doesn’t make it any less meaningful. If anything this one feels like it means _more_ , like this is founded in something stronger, more concrete, something like mutual respect and understanding and not just that surface-level, shallow feeling of desire – though she won’t deny that’s very much present, too. Back in her younger days maybe there would’ve been more of that uncontainable fire, but this feels like a flame that burns lower, quieter, steadier; a bed of smoldering coals instead of an inferno that would engulf them both.

They both taste like hoagies, meat and peppers and tomatoes and cheese, and before Laurel can help it she’s laughing against his lips, and soon he’s doing the same. Before, she doesn’t think she ever would’ve dared to kiss anyone without popping a breath mint first, but there’s something undeniably charming about this messy, sloppy hoagie kiss – and not everything needs to be perfect.

And this somehow manages to be perfect anyway.

Frank is the one to break away, and when he does she can smell the kiss lingering in the air between them. Her lips feel ice-cold, coated in the rapidly cooling saliva in the winter air. Her lipstick is probably smudged, too, and she can’t bring herself to care.

“Haven’t kissed anyone in a while, either,” Frank rasps, cocking his head to one side. There’s something like a hint of shame in the way he says the words, though, as if he’s embarrassed by the fact, though it’s more endearing than anything. “Think I’m kinda rusty.”

“That’s okay.” Laurel licks her lips, like a woman preparing to devour some delicious confection, because right then, flushed from the cold and looking at her like she’s a goddess in the flesh, Frank looks pretty damn worthy of devouring. “We can get each other up to speed pretty quick, I think.”


	3. III

She’s giggly and on a wine buzz from dinner the first time they fall into bed together.

They wind up back at Frank’s place, and he’s upon her at once, pulling her inside the front door and pressing her up against the wall beside the spindly iron coatrack and kissing her, and in that kiss he infuses so much desire, so much yearning, so much of himself that it’s overwhelming, saying everything he’s been holding back all night for the sake of decency with that kiss. He can’t keep his hands off her, has been staring all evening at her little black dress which she hasn’t worn in ages but broke out for this occasion, and she’s never felt so sexy, so desired. So _wanted_.

“Chris?” he breathes against her neck as his hand parts her thighs, en route to the juncture between them. There’s nothing but a pair of thin lace panties in his way, the skin beneath shaved smooth – something she hasn’t done in ages, either – and when he reaches his destination his eyes light up, glinting silver in the moonlight.

“At… my friend Michaela’s, for the night,” she answers. She’s breathless, flushed red all over. She can’t remember the last time she was so aroused; she’s not sure she’s ever had anyone play her body like this, like tuning the strings of an instrument tighter and tighter until she feels ready to snap.  “Cat?”

“My friend Bonnie has her,” Frank grunts, voice low and guttural, a deep bass that rumbles across her skin, thick with desperation.

“The whole night?”

“The whole night,” he reaffirms wickedly, grinning a cheeky grin she can’t help but reciprocate. “Just you ‘n me.”

Somehow they stumble their way up the stairs, though Frank still can’t seem to manage to stop touching her, feeling her skin beneath his as if reassuring himself she’s real, pawing at her and tugging her close because he can never seem to get her close enough. He wants her, with such passion it’s almost frightening, and it frightens Laurel to find herself in a similar way, his hands licking at her like fire, igniting her all over until she feels like a pyre of a woman, gone up in flames, gone mad.

And they have the whole night. The entire _house_. Every square inch of this place – and suddenly she wants him everywhere, in the shower and in the bed and up against the window and on the kitchen table and on the couch and maybe on the goddamn _floor_. She’s never been like this. She feels insane. Most sex she’s had in her life has been in beds; Wes, charming as he was, always preferred missionary, safe and sweet and very, very vanilla. It did the job, most times, for her.

But there’s a look in Frank’s eyes, dark and dangerous, that lets her know this is going to do so much more.

She’s dimly aware of the two of them crossing the threshold into his bedroom, and she finds herself up against the wall once more, his body pinning her there. They’ve moved so fast her head is spinning, and Laurel doesn’t want to stop; she wants more. She wants everything he can give her and then some, and her whole body is throbbing one singular beat of desire, her clit swollen and pulsing against the seam of her panties. He’s hot as hell, in his pressed three-piece suit, that waistcoat which fits him immaculately, and there’s so much of him to explore; his bulky biceps and throat and chest and thighs. He’s shoving her up against the wall. He’s impossibly strong and hard and stable. Huge. His cock is pressing against her hip insistently, bulging in his slacks – and. Well.

Speaking of _other_ huge things.

There’s a flurry of movement, suddenly, his hands hooking around her back, dragging down the zipper on her dress, allowing the fabric to crumple around her ankles. A rush of cold air hits her like a kick in the gut.

And that’s when lightning strikes, and everything grinds to a halt.

She tenses, her whole body going rigid at once, and Frank, who is peppering her jawline with kisses, feels it immediately, pulls back. All at once she feels so naked, vulnerable, though she’s still in her bra and panties; she hasn’t been this exposed with another person in forever, not since Wes, not since Christopher was born, and she’s painfully aware of how her pregnancy had scarred her body, left her hips and stomach and breasts littered with unsightly stretch marks. They’ve faded significantly, over the years, but the puckering of the skin and the faint, pink streaks still remain despite her almost obsessive attempts to rid herself of them, all sorts of creams and gels and other sundry snake oils with grandiose claims.

She can’t. She can’t do this. She doesn’t know why she ever thought she could, why he could ever want her. Why _anyone_ ever could.

Once, maybe, she’d been at least relatively comfortable in her own body, but now she’s so self-conscious she wants nothing more than to fade into the wall behind her, become a light fixture overhead; something, anything, to escape. Frank has a bemused look on his face, and he moves forward, slightly, before catching himself and backing off, as if terrified he’ll spook her like a doe in the forest and she’ll go darting off.

“I…” she musters her voice, finally; tiny, scratchy, pathetic thing that it is. “I, uh… I haven’t been with anyone. Since Wes. Since…” She gulps, glancing down at the marks patterning her stomach, just above her pelvis, littering her hips. They’re harder to see, in the dim light, but to her they’re impossible to miss, as stark as fault lines on her skin. “They look bad, I know.”

But then Frank is shaking his head, and dropping to his knees, and kissing the faint, pale indentations, soothing his tongue over the scarred flesh, gazing upon them almost reverently.

“They’re battle scars,” he rasps, a crooked grin on his face. “They’re fucking _badass_.”

She melts. She wants to burst into tears, but before she can Frank is moving higher, kissing her stomach, his beard tickling her sensitive skin, and she bursts into giddy laughter instead – because of course he wouldn’t find them unsightly, be disgusted by them. To him, they’re a testament to her bravery, to the strength of her flesh, the power of her body, everything she’s withstood; he seems to adore them, reading the lines as though tracing roadways on a map, charting the story of her body, the story of _her_.

He’s fascinated by them, completely, inexplicably, and suddenly Laurel finds herself hating them less, as his hands roam her body. He touches her like Midas, turning her to gold and worshipping his creation, and all she can do is marvel.

Then, he eases his way to his feet, holds out his hand. She takes it, and lets him lead her to bed.

He looks like the Devil luring her to her doom. He looks like an angel beckoning her to paradise.

 

~

 

She lays in his arms, after, sweaty and spent. Her whole body is humming, but it’s not the insistent drone it was before; it’s like soothing aloe over a burn, calming her. It’s a hum of satisfaction she can feel swelling inside her now, a potent, dizzying rush of endorphins, rising like the sap in springtime until it floods her bloodstream, until she’s happier than she can remember being in a long, long time.

“God,” she breathes on a contented little sigh. “I forgot what that felt like. Sex. _God_.” Laurel shakes her head, laughing. “I really, really missed that.”

“Me too.” He chuckles, playing idly with a strand of her hair. “You go so long without it, you forget what you’re missin’ out on.”

“How long’s it been for you? If… you don’t mind me asking.”

“Four years,” he replies. “Tried dating for a bit, when Cat was two. Didn’t end well, me bein’ a package deal with a kid and all. You?”

“Almost seven,” she confesses, and he lets out a low whistle.

“Damn.”

“I know. I’m the cliché, uptight single working mom who never gets any.”

“Well, if it’s any consolation,” Frank undertones, and moves his hand down, toying with her nipple, “you’re a total MILF.”

Laurel laughs, resting her chin on his chest. “Yeah?”

“Hell yeah. None of those snot-nosed stay-at-home’s could hold a candle to you.”

“They’re always named Susan, you notice that? Or Helen. And they give their kids the _weirdest_ possible names. Kaitlyn with, like, five y’s and three n’s – or the Roman numeral eight. KVIIIlyn. I think Chris has a girl in his class named Sharpay.”

“After the dog or the High School Musical character?”

“Probably the latter,” she snorts, and buries her face into the crook of his neck. “But who knows, with them.”

They relish the stillness, for a while. The silence is almost unnerving to Laurel, after years upon years of living with a screaming child with a bottomless font of energy, but _God_ , it’s so sweet she could cry. The heat of Frank’s body keeps out the winter chill, insulating her in his arms, and again, she’s struck by how pure her happiness is. How _real_ this feels.

“Fuck,” Laurel sighs, again, palming his chest, feeling its firmness beneath her hands. “God, you’re so hot.”

He laughs. “You sayin’ I’m a DILF then?”

“I,” she starts, laying a kiss between his pecs, then higher, on his neck, “am saying _exactly_ that.”

They dissolve into laughter, carefree and light as bells. Frank rolls her over onto her back, sinking into her again and covering her with kisses as soft as rain, and fucking her to sleep until she drifts out into that hazy black sea, wrapped in his body.

And then, because she’s always had a knack for ruining everything, in the morning before Frank wakes, she gathers her clothes, slips them on silently, and leaves without a word.

 

~

 

He calls and texts unrelentingly, as the days pass, and she doesn’t answer. The worst part is, she’s not even entirely sure why.

She tells herself it’s because things get busy, because she gets slammed with a dozen new cases until she feels like she’s drowning – when in reality it’s maybe only three or four new cases, and she’s keeping her head above water like she usually does, and she’s no busier than she usually is. It’s that horrible, self-isolating instinct again, to guard her heart under lock and key, and what she’d felt that night with Frank had been so real. Too real. Edging too far away from that comfortable numbness she’s cloaked herself in all these years.

She doesn’t love Frank. But there’s a voice in the back of her head telling her that she _could_ , and that voice alone is enough to scare her out of her wits, scare her back into her own very neat, very solitary little corner of the world.

They don’t cross paths. Laurel makes sure of it. She isn’t at the school except for parent-teacher conferences in March, and fortunately she manages to avoid him there, seeing as Chris and Cat are in different homerooms. She’s shorter with clients than usual, brusquer. She can’t be bothered to feign contentment at work, though she does her best around Christopher, who she can tell is picking up on something nonetheless.

He gets that from her, that perceptiveness, wisdom, and he intuits far more than he lets on most days; sometimes he’s so observant it scares the shit out of her. He looks like Wes’s son, in almost every physical way, but it’s times like these she sees an almost startling amount of herself in the boy.

They have a blow-up one night after school, when she’s a bit later than usual getting him from daycare, and he spends what must be hours going on and on about getting a bike, which has been a point of contention between them since his friend Jason down the street got one for Christmas. And it’s stupid, she knows it is, for her to be so afraid of letting him on a bike, when surely nothing bad will happen, but it reopens an old, festering wound nevertheless, that memory of Wes resurfacing from the deep. He throws a tantrum, as children are wont to do, a lot of very loud hysterical crying and foot-stomping – and it’s then that Laurel finally loses it, and yells.

She’s never really yelled at him, before. Snapped, sure, when she needed to discipline him, but never actually _yelled_ , always made an effort to keep her cool, and it surprises Christopher as much as it surprises her. Immediately his tears cease, his whole body going still, and he stands there in the middle of their living room, so tiny so suddenly, so bewildered. There’s something calculating in his eyes, like a tiny adult, like he can tell this isn’t like her and something is wrong, and immediately she slumps, guilt crashing over her.

She tries so hard to be the perfect mother. But she can’t be, no matter how hard she tries.

Laurel goes to him, kneeling down with a sigh, feeling rather like she wants to burst into tears, herself. “I’m sorry, buddy, mom’s sorry. She’s just been… really tired, lately.” God, when did she start talking in the third person? This calls for some serious introspection, later.

“’S okay,” he mutters, rubbing at the tears on his cheeks with his knuckles, and Laurel reaches out, taking him into her arms.

“I love you more than anything in the world, okay? And if anything ever happened to you, on a bike…” She drifts off, burying her face into his little striped t-shirt, unable to continue.

“’Cause of daddy?”

Laurel pulls back, finding tears on her cheeks she can’t even remember when she began shedding, and gives a little nod. “Yeah. ‘Cause of daddy. All I want is for you to be safe. Always.”

“I will be,” he assures her, and he seems so worried, suddenly, and God, it makes her feel infinitely worse, because he shouldn’t have to worry, ever. She’s the one who should be doing all the worrying. She’s the one who should have her shit together. “Promise.”

“How about we start with a scooter?” she bargains, giving him a watery smile, and he reaches out, brushing her tears away with his little fingers. And he’s so good, she thinks. So kind and soft and gentle. He never stops amazing her. “How’s that sound? Meet in the middle?”

“Okay.”

“Okay,” Laurel echoes, and takes his hand, pressing a kiss to it before standing. “Now let’s get you in bed, hmm?”

They do just that, and once he’s tucked in Laurel lies down beside him, still in her clothes from work. Sometimes he protests when she does this, says it’s too babyish, that he’s too old and far too cool for her, but tonight he doesn’t; tonight, he seems to sense she needs it. She may know him so completely, so wholly, from all those months he spent growing inside her, but turns out those months also gave Christopher time to learn her just as well, to form this unshakable, intense bond that sometimes Laurel herself can’t even fully wrap her head around. It feels like clairsentience, like he can feel exactly what she’s feeling, read her thoughts line by line. Like they have the same mind and heart in two different bodies.

She loves him. She loves him so much sometimes it feels like it might stop her heart.

When she’s with Frank she feels almost unfaithful, like she’s taking love she ought to devote to Christopher and giving it to someone else, giving Frank precious time she should be giving to her son instead. There are two sides of her which feel perpetually at war these days, and she doesn’t want them to be, and she doesn’t know how to strike a balance. No one ever told her how hard it would be.

No one ever told her a lot of things, about parenthood.

“Can Cat come over sometime soon?” Chris asks, suddenly, his voice slurred with sleep, and she smiles.

“Of course, baby.”

“She said her dad really liked you,” he informs her, and Laurel furrows her brow.

She puffs up, a little. “Yeah?”

“Mmm hmm,” he affirms, eyelids heavy and drooping. “And _I_ really like her. You too, mom. But…” He gives a little huff, “also her.”

“Well, in that case, I’ll give them a call tomorrow.” She presses a kiss to his forehead, closing her eyes and chuckling. “Go to sleep, _mijo_. You got school in the morning.”

It shakes her more than she’d expected, the mention of Frank; almost like Christopher senses something between them, somehow. Sometimes she swears that boy must be psychic, and she hasn’t yet figured out how he’ll react, on the off chance this thing between she and Frank _does_ turn into something after all; she’s sure he’d be far from happy to have his torrid playground affair cut short by his _mother’s_ own torrid playground affair – God, if she were a six-year-old, she’d be downright mortified.

Not that it _will_ turn into something, anyway. Nope. No sir. Not a chance. Not a one.

 

~

 

They settle on the park – public, one of Laurel’s requirements to stave off any more kissing or inappropriate PDA – and meet there Sunday afternoon. It’s early April, and the winter winds have begun to thaw, but not enough for her to forgo bundling up, wrapping a plaid scarf around her neck and slipping on her wool pea coat.

She’s pushing Christopher on the swings when Cat comes bounding up to them, kicking up woodchips, and Frank follows hot on her heels, a smile teasing at his lips. He eyes Laurel cautiously, like he’s not exactly sure how to proceed, and she greets him cordially for the sake of the kids, before retreating over to a bench off to the side and taking a seat. Frank gets the message and follows, sinking down beside her but maintaining a safe distance, and for what is quite possibly one of the most awkward moments in her life, they sit there side by side, not speaking, just watching Chris and Cat play.

Finally, Laurel sucks in a breath, and gives in to the weight of the silence.

“I don’t have an excuse, if you’re wondering,” she tells him point-blank, eyes front, not looking at him. “For why I didn’t call. I just…” Laurel exhales sharply. “I suck. I admit it.”

Frank doesn’t seem all that bothered. “Didn’t figure you for the hit-it-and-quit-it type. Guess I was wrong.”

“That’s not…” She shakes her head. “That’s not what that was, you know that.”

“Do I?” he shoots back, not loud or harsh, but clearly annoyed. He leans forward, wringing his hands and looking over at her. “Do I know that, Laurel? You didn’t leave a note. You ghosted me for a week. What was I supposed to think?”

She winces. His words burn, especially because she knows they’re right. “Frank-”

“You’re scared. Of this. What we have. I get that,” he lowers his voice. “I am too. But I still wanna try, so – what the hell are you so scared of that you won’t even _try_?”

“Of getting hurt, again,” she tells him plainly, not batting an eye, jaw tight. “Of Chris getting hurt, mostly. Because I could take it, but if it happened to him…” Laurel lets out a breath. “I promised myself I was never gonna be the kind of mom who parades her boyfriends in and out of the house and screws up her kid. Chris, he… He’s had to deal with not having a dad his whole life. And then finally getting one and having him leave, losing him?” She fixes her eyes straight ahead, where Chris and Cat have migrated to the monkey bars. “I can’t do that to him. I can’t… do that to Wes, either.”

“Wes, he…” Frank struggles to find the words, for a moment. “He’d want you to be happy, Laurel.”

Her temper flares. “How do you know that? You didn’t even _know_ him. And… and you don’t know me-”

“Then _let_ me,” he urges, moving closer, eyes wide with sincerity. “Let me know you. I wanna know you. And Chris.”

She grinds her molars. “You can’t take Wes’s place, Frank.”

“I’m not tryin’ to,” Frank promises, but she won’t look at him, will only stubbornly keep her eyes fixed ahead. He sighs. “I’m not. Wes… he’s always gonna be a part of you. Part of Chris. No one’s ever gonna change that, and I don’t want to.” A pause. He swallows. “’Sides, you think I’d wanna do this if I thought it would hurt Cat? If _you’d_ hurt Cat? We’re both package deals. But we could be good together. I know we could. One… jumbo, Costco-sized package deal.”

“And if this ends badly?” she presses, her excuses growing as thin as organdy.

Frank grins. “Pessimistic, ain’t it?”

“ _Real_ istic,” she corrects him, softening ever so slightly.

He shrugs. “Least we can say we tried, not wonder about what-if’s. What we got… it could be something. Something real. I know you feel it too.” He pauses, licking his lips, voice low. He infuses every word with such meaning that she can’t help but shudder. “I’m all in, okay? No half measures. The long haul.”

Laurel presses her lips tight together, curling in on herself. They’re standing at a crossroads, the future laid out wide open before them, and the easiest, simplest thing would be to say no, take the well-traveled, safest path, go back to how things have been all these years. It hasn’t been a bad life, she thinks, watching Chris and Cat run around, playing some unidentifiable game one of them has devised. Not a bad life at all. She doesn’t lament the things that could have been.

But she doesn’t want to lament the things that could _be_ , either.

“Okay,” she tells him, chain raised, a smile ghosting across her lips. “So we try.”

Frank scoots a bit closer, dares to rest his hand on her knee; a subtle movement, not overt. Cat and Chris are far too absorbed in their game to pay any mind to them and for once, Laurel is fine with being ignored. She leans in closer, humming softly, feeling the warmth of his body chase the chill from hers, thawing her like the spring breeze in the air. And she doesn’t know how this will end, but she has an inkling it’s going to be good.

She has an inkling that maybe, just maybe, it won’t end at all.

“I don’t think they’re gonna be happy, y’know,” Laurel observes, watching Cat stalk up rather boldly to Chris and plant a clumsy kiss on his cheek, “when we tell them they can’t get hitched.”

“Probably wouldn’t last,” he chuckles. “Childhood sweethearts usually don’t.”

She glances up at him. “Now who’s the cynic?”

“I didn’t know what love was, when I was a kid. Even when I was technically an adult. Lot of different girls, one night stands. Never took anything seriously,” Frank tells her, peering over at the playground with her. “Then I had her. Got… sentimental as hell.” He meets her eyes. It’s hard to breathe, so close to him, when every breath he takes feels like it’s stealing the air straight from her lungs. “And I learned what love is. She taught me.”

“He taught me, too,” she murmurs. “But maybe… you can help me remember.”

Frank winks at her, and leans in, pressing a kiss to the side of her lips, lingering there close to her cheek, nuzzling it with his nose. Cat and Chris have disappeared around the other side of the playground; they’ll have to locate them soon, but Laurel thinks they can allow themselves a moment, just the two of them, grinning like fools, like giddy high school lovers. Like the children they once were.

He doesn’t have to say so for her to know they have a deal.

 

~

 

It’s summer, now.

The air is thick and muggy in the wake of the rainstorm earlier in the day, but it’s a pleasant heat; not an oppressive one, perfect weather for the Friday cookouts which have become a weekly staple in the as-yet-unofficially-combined Castillo-Delfino household. They’re set up in Frank’s tiny, pathetic excuse for a backyard, but Laurel doesn’t mind, just inhales a breath of fresh, smoky air into her lungs and savors it as she sets a bowl of potato salad down on their picnic table. Christopher and Cat are off by the fence, bent down on their hands and knees and examining something intently – probably an insect, because she swears they have a pair of budding entomologists on their hands.

Frank is by the grill, flipping a row of hamburgers and sweating from the heat, clad in what is possibly the most dad-esque blue polo and khaki shorts she’s ever seen. She happens to look down, for no real reason, catching a glimpse of his feet – clad in two neon green clog monstrosities – and when she does, she snorts.

“Uh, what are those?”

Frank glances down too, furrowing his brow. “What, these? They’re Crocs. You never seen Crocs before?”

“I have,” she teases, coming to stand beside him and feeling the heat from the fire rise into her face. “I think the last time was… 2006, on a ten-year-old girl.”

He feigns offense, tending to his burgers and fretting over them like he would a new baby. “They’re back en vogue, I’ll have you know. Style magazines say so.”

Laurel scoffs. “What disreputable style magazine would ever say that? And since when do you read style magazines at all?”

“The pediatrician had some out the other day,” he explains, nudging at a burger with his spatula. “Look, just don’t do some ‘it’s me or the Crocs’ thing, okay? I don’t wanna have to pick. They’re comfy as hell.”

“You look…” Laurel drifts off, unable to find the right words. Eventually, she just shakes her head. “I wish you could see how you look right now.”

A shit-eating grin worms its way onto his features. “You think they’re hot, don’t you?”

“What – oh my God, _no_.”

“You do,” Frank purrs, setting down his spatula and momentarily abandoning their food. He places his hands on her hips, eyes drinking in her legs; lithe and well-muscled and exposed almost fully by her tiny cutoff shorts. She’s not above flaunting what she’s got, and Frank doesn’t seem like he’s about to make any protestations about it. “You got a Croc fetish, I knew it.”

She hits him on the arm, and it’s not really gentle, but she knows it doesn’t hurt by the way his face lights up, eyes twinkling with mirth. “I hate you so much.”

Frank remains unabashed, nodding down at the burgers on the grill, sizzling away. “My meat’s right here, y’know. All seasoned and ready for ya.”

“Was that-” A sputtering laughing cuts her off. “Wow, was that just a dad pick-up line? Is that… a step up from a dad joke or a step down, you think?”

“Most _definitely_ a step up,” he teases, and reaches down, squeezing her ass and making her rise up on her toes in surprise. “It work?”

She elbows him, rolling her eyes good-naturedly and returning to the table, which she sets about organizing, paying out paper plates and plastic silverware as she sips intermitted from a glass of sweating lemonade. “Keep it PG, killer. We’ll talk tonight.”

It’s terribly cliché, Laurel thinks, suddenly, taking in the scene around her; like something from a Home Depot advertisement, all lush green grass and smiling, laughing children and dinner on the grill, the proverbial white picket fence and the whole nine yards, although the privacy fence surrounding them is higher, not picketed, lacking that certain suburban _je ne sais quoi_. When she was young she always imagined she’d feel suffocated by this sort of thing, by a family, a husband and two and a half kids – and there aren’t two and a half kids in this picture, maybe, but sometimes she swears Chris is enough of a handful that he might as well count for 1.5 kids.

Yet she doesn’t. She feels, for a moment, that euphoric, gentle rush of contentment, smoldering inside her like a bed of embers, creeping as slowly as the movement of magma beneath the Earth; not intense happiness, not overwhelming joy, but something sweeter, something that feels a whole hell of a lot more enduring. The world itself feels softer around the edges, taking on almost a hazy dream-like quality. It’s idyllic, the picture laid out before her; Frank and Cat and Christopher, their little mismatched maybe-family, like scattered puzzle pieces that somehow, by some miracle, manage to fit perfectly back together.

She wouldn’t give it up for the world. Not after she came so close to not having it at all.

She knows this is the sort of thing Wes would have wanted for her; to find happiness, to start again – but it doesn’t feel like starting again, starting fresh. There’s nothing she’s ashamed of she has to escape; this is simply turning the page in the book of her life, penning a new chapter, building off everything from before. Christopher has a father, now, and she’s glad for that, though sometimes things still feel tenuous, a bit shaky, as they find their footing as a unit of four instead of a unit of two. And Frank hasn’t taken Wes’s place; he never can. And Frank isn’t less important than Wes. He isn’t secondary, isn’t ranked beneath him. He just simply _is_.

And Laurel won’t deny that she’s always secretly wanted a daughter; a little girl to play dress-up with, to help braid her hair, to do all those stereotypical girl things, and she despises gender stereotypes, and would fully support Cat if she decided she preferred trucks and action figures over Barbies, but as far as she can tell, Cat’s as stereotypical as they come – and that’s okay with her. She’s just herself; Frank has never pushed her to be anything but, that much is clear, and sometimes when she’s sitting with Cat, playing dolls or doing make-believe or having a tea party with her moderately-sized army of stuffed animals, and she notices the look in Frank’s eyes, tender and amazed at the sight of her with his daughter, she knows she’ll love him, one day. Knows she’s well on her way there with Cat, too.

She’s never been one to fall in the blink of an eye. But they’re impossible not to love.

Frank curls an arm around her from behind, peering out at Chris and Cat, a dreamy smile on his lips, similar to what she imagines hers must look like. She’d been so sure, once, that she could never love anyone again, that maybe Wes was her One, that she simply wasn’t capable, too emotionally and physically unavailable for anyone to ever want, but now she marvels at how wrong she was. Because Frank lifts her up, makes her feel like she can see for miles, makes her feel powerful and wanted and terrifyingly weak, sometimes. He makes her feel so much the immensity of it petrifies her, most days, and that’s a fear she’s still getting over. She may never stop getting over it, but he doesn’t seem to mind; he just draws her closer, nuzzling her ear, pressing a kiss to the delicate shell. Right then, Laurel could swear this is paradise.

She can see for miles, with him by her side. And now, now there’s nothing but clear skies in sight.


End file.
